Company to Watch: Rubber Soul

Local brand gains traction by turning used tires into footwear

By Madeline Hollern

Published: August 1, 2016

Photo courtesy Tredagain

When car tires have traveled around 50,000 miles, they reach the end of the road—and many of them end up in landfills or on the side of the highway. Frustrated by all of the waste, a local company looked for a solution. Green Source Holdings, a group that develops sustainable technologies, enlisted its subsidiary Austin Rubber to create technology to break down tire rubber and turn it into an affordable virgin rubber substitute. After more than five years of development, Austin Rubber achieved the task, paving the way for its sister company, TREDAGAIN.

The upcycled brand makes 50 percent of the rubber in its shoes’ outsoles using APX, Austin Rubber’s patented virgin rubber substitute. While many footwear companies claim to use recycled materials, the label can be misleading, says TREDAGAIN President Fitz Lee. “When you flip a lot of shoes over, you see the little recycle logo on the bottom of the shoe, and as a consumer, you think, Hey, that’s great, this shoe is recycled. But they’re not telling you the whole truth,” he says. According to Lee, many manufacturers just recycle their own rubber scraps off the floor and reuse the scraps as filler in footwear. Usually only 2 to 3 percent can be used, or else the rubber compounds will not hold together properly. Because Austin Rubber has a patented process to devulcanize rubber compounds, Lee says the result is a higher quality rubber substitute, so more of it can be used per shoe.

Last summer, TREDAGAIN debuted its men’s and women’s sandals in various colors ($69.99 each), and this fall, the company will start selling two styles of rain boots ($149.99 each). Approximately 15 more shoe styles are slated to debut by the beginning of next year. “Every tire that we rescue, we can turn that tire into five pairs of shoes,” Lee says. By giving new life to used tires, the brand has truly reinvented the wheel.